MOSCOW — Russia’s Prime Minister Vladimir Putin will likely return to power as president next year after President Dmitry Medvedev nominated him Saturday as the ruling political party’s candidate for the March 2012 presidential elections.

The announcement signaled Medvedev’s willingness to step down after a single term in office, and to yield leadership to Putin, who served two terms as president during 2000-08 but was barred from running again in 2008 due to term limits.

The move ended speculation about the country’s likely next leader and triggered sharp criticism from Russia’s opposition, which condemned the proposed power swap as an anti-reform move that will lead to economic stagnation.

After the March elections, Russia’s next president will serve six years instead of the previous four-year terms, under a constitutional change.

Boris Nemtsov, deputy prime minister in the late 1990s, condemned the move as a “horror scenario.”

“Putin returns and everyone else leaves. Foreign capital will flee, and people will emigrate,” he said.

Medvedev’s nomination of the former KGB agent Putin was furiously applauded and cheered by some 11,000 delegates during a congress of United Russia, the political party that has held almost total control over the country’s government for the last decade.

Putin declared his intention to win the March presidential race, saying, “I have not yet lost the voice for command” and “Nothing will push us (United Russia) from the saddle.”

He said Medvedev should lead United Russia’s party list for parliamentary elections scheduled on Dec. 4. If, as is considered highly likely by Russian political observers, United Russia were to win the Dec. 4 elections, Medvedev would almost certainly take the job of prime minister, replacing Putin.

In a tough-talking speech, Putin laid out a campaign platform pushing long-held United Russia priorities of a strong central government and intensified development of Russia’s vast natural resources.

An increased tax burden on the wealthy, a tax holiday for small business, and fiscal policy keeping inflation under control were needed to stimulate Russia’s gross domestic product to a 6 percent to 7 percent annual expansion rate, Putin said.

“In the next five years, Russia needs to become one of the world’s five leading economies,” he said.

Speaking on national security and central government, Putin said he wanted the country’s armed forces “totally rearmed” in the next five to 10 years, and suggested Russian government workers should receive across-the-board salary hikes.

Medvedev, in a similar acceptance speech, said he was ready to serve as the number one politician on the United Party list, and be prime minister if chosen.

He named fighting corruption, increasing social welfare payments and modernizing Russia’s currently ore-extraction and energy-dependent economy as top priorities for a government he might head.

“With our joint efforts, we have protected our beloved Motherland from destruction and made her stronger,” Medvedev said. “We will not give her away.”

Declarations of support of Putin, Medvedev and United Russia’s almost undisputed rule poured in from officials across the country’s eight time zones.

“The tandem of leaders that was created several years ago works effectively, it is a guarantee of stability in our Motherland,” said Viacheslav Pozgalaev, governor of the Volga River city Volgograd, in comments to Interfax.

“They (Putin and Medvedev) have shown our enemies that they are united in supporting the interests of the state,” said Ramzan Kadyrov, leader of Chechnya, an often-violent Caucasus territory long the centre of a Muslim-led insurgency against Russian rule.

Only a few made public criticism of Putin and Medvedev’s plans to remain in power until at least 2016 by trading the offices of president and prime minister.

“Indeed, that’s no reason to be happy,” Arkadi Dvorkovich, one of Medvedev’s closest aides, wrote on the social network Twitter. The 39-year-old had demonstratively stayed away from the party congress, held at a sports stadium in Moscow.

“It’s time to switch to a sports channel,” the aide added.

“Modernization is the renewal of government, and not just a rotation of positions. This is not modernization but stagnation,” Sergei Mitrokhin, leader of the Yabloka opposition party, told the RIA Novosti news agency.

Mikhail Kasyanov, prime minister from 200-2004, said: “If Putin is president again, a collapse of the country is unavoidable.”

Much more characteristic was outspoken support and, in the case of some commentators, unconditional praise of the Putin-Medvedev pairing.

Asked by a reporter if he felt it appropriate that two men acting alone should determine Russia’s leadership and major policies, Andrei Vorobev, a United Russia spokesman, responded: “Our style is action on receiving commands. Today, that command style has shown its very best qualities.”

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